STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Hurricane Sandy survivors Jennifer Darcy of Midland Beach and her three children, Brien, 10, Christine, 8, and Andrew, 6, trudged through raw sewer water on their way from their home in Midland Beach to their school at PS 38 on Thursday morning.

"This is like living Sandy all over again," Mrs. Darcy said. "To have to walk through that was disgusting. God only know
what kind of diseases that they can get from walking through raw sewage."

A trip that normally takes only a few minutes took nearly a half hour on Thursday morning. Most of that time was spent by Mrs. Darcy helping her children wade one at a time to their car which was parked on a hill around the corner as a precaution.

"If we hadn't moved our cars yesterday, we would have lost them in the flood," Mrs. Darcy said.

She dressed her children in shorts and snow boots for the trip through water that was at least a foot high. The youngsters then had to change into their school clothes and shoes in the car for the ride to school.

"My oldest son is taking the state test, so there is no way that my children could be absent today," Mrs. Darcy said.

The water from Sandy didn't recede for more than a week and a half on a street where there has been an on-going problem of inadequate sewer drainage, Mrs. Darcy said.

"Every time there's even a little bit of rain, we get a puddle so deep that you can't drive up our street," Mrs. Darcy said. "This time it came up to first step on my front porch."

The family lives in the childhood home of her husband, James, and repeated complaints to the city Department of Environmental Protection and intervention by politicians hasn't solved the flooding issue.

"Hopefully, the water level will go down by the time I have to pick up my kids from school at 2:30 p.m.," Mrs. Darcy said.